ECB relies on a Wim and a prayer as growth forecast falls

NEWS flash from the ‘always look on the bright side of life’ school of editorial judgement, as the Euractiv website leads with this headline: “Commission forecasts solid growth for candidate countries.”

Well, yes, it’s true that those economies have had nowhere to go but up for the past decade, but this isn’t exactly the EU economic news of the week. You have to scroll down for that little piece of somewhat less heart-warming information about a much larger chunk of the European gross domestic product: “Commission cuts 2003 growth forecast to one percent.”

Others focus on the bad news. Libération’s mischievously insightful Jean Quatremer likens the reliability of economic forecasts to that of “horoscopes in mass-circulation newspapers”. The European Commission, he reports, recognises this fact and “held its nose” as it issued its new, lower growth predictions for 2003.

However, it’s not all bad news for Europe’s economy. Le Monde finds that “in this morose period, certain news is good. And the latest comes to us from…the United States”.

The Paris daily quotes a new study by American business magazine Forbes on the 400 best-performing companies in the world. “Not surprisingly,” Le Monde reports, “the United States appears to be the big winner of this global contest” with 156 firms on the list. But in second place, with 34 companies, is none other than France.

In other economic news, the decision by the head of the European Central Bank (ECB), Wim Duisenberg, to accept a proposal by EU finance ministers to remain in office until a successor is appointed provokes some disagreement.

Germany’s Berliner Zeitung criticizes the decision, fearing it will lead to “an interminable debate about the next ECB head” if Duisenberg’s designated successor, Bank of France chief Jean-Claude Trichet, fails to be acquitted in a banking scandal trial.

But Austria’s Der Standard thinks Duisenberg has made the right choice. It describes the decision to ask him to stay on for the time being as a “triumph” because European leaders have been forced “to beg him on their knees to stay in office until a successor is found”.

The BBC website reports on a disturbing new phenomenon in the Czech Republic: self-immolation. There have been six incidents in the past month of people setting themselves on fire, and three have died. “The series of self-immolations began when a student killed himself in Prague’s Wenceslas Square – as the young student Jan Palach did in 1969 to protest against the Soviet invasion,” the BBC reveals.

“In the latest incident a 43-year-old man set himself on fire shortly after midnight on Tuesday, after leaving a pub in the village of Velka Chyska…

“Correspondents say there is no evidence to suggest any link between the series of self-immolation incidents” but one of the victims “left behind a note suggesting anger over the war in Iraq”.

Le Soir, meanwhile, is unimpressed by the Belgian parliament’s decision to restrict the scope of a controversial law that allows foreign leaders to be tried in Belgian courts for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“The parliamentary session could not have had a worse ending,” the paper says, highlighting the fact that the change in the law was backed by the far-right Vlaams Blok opposition party.

It suggests that the divisions among the governing parties represent a setback for Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt’s ruling ‘rainbow’ coalition.

Odd analysis, when you consider that it was Verhofstadt who pushed for the change to the law in the first place, in a bid to prevent his country becoming an international pariah.

Finally, a Wednesday morning glimpse at BBC World reveals what can go wrong with those annoying text scrolls at the bottom of the television screen. At one point the network garbled up two consecutive updates. One read: “British troops are trying to control Tony Blair on the future of Iraq.” This was followed by: “Kofi Annan has proposed a meeting with looting in Basra.”